Alright, now let's see...
Cerulean Veyron wrote:
eyaaa... You've been busy checking through this mapset, yes? Well then, right now... It's about to get busier B)Done. Thanks for checking out my top difficulty! I have the feeling that the process will not be easy to cakewalk and get my first hard map to qualified, but will barely go through any obstacles hopefully... If I'm doing things right.Doyak wrote:
[Cool!]
I'm gonna say this map is lacking proper emphasis, and sometimes the rhythms are not understandable. So let's talk about them.
* 00:06:585 (2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13) - The point when the sharp angle appears has nothing to do with the music structure. You're providing a harsh experience on 00:06:984 - this spot but it's literally one of the weakest drum in here. If there's no musical support of doing it, you should rather not use such sudden change.
I guess people don't get it in depth of this disregarding aesthetics and sense. I'm quite not a big fan of arranging a ton of circle-streams when it comes to mapping something difficult, although it's current state is also not really the best thing to keep and knew someone like you would say so for sure. If I'd be obliged to recreate the structure of the stream here, I wouldn't mind redoing more turning curves by adjusting a few placements on some circles or simply remapping it. But if it's one of those two options, specifically remap, I'll be damned to redo it because it's been kept so long since the day of submission.
Of course, I may not likely to diminish the stream for the note density or those common things in every Extra difficulties. But at least I'm reconsidering this part in order to leave patterns work in contrast alongside the emphasis with the drumline in my personal view. I don't mind not changing stuff here hugely too as said, will get into consideration of this.
The point here is not that the stream has a sharp angle. It's about where you used it. You can achieve both: Using a special stream pattern & make it fit the song's strong points.
Obviously 00:06:904 - is stronger and is one of the main beats while 00:06:984 - is a very regular 1/4 drum, and is on blue tick which doesn't work as a turning point. So if possible, why not adjust it so that players can feel the relation between note structure and the music? They're not same 1/4 sounds; some of them are more important and some are less important. If not same, the turning point should be on where the music can be divided.
* 00:08:819 (1,2,3,4,5) - I don't get the rhythm of this at all. You ignored a lot of obvious 1/4 drums ( 00:09:058 - 00:09:457 - 00:09:697 - 00:09:856 - ) nor followed the melody correctly.
The upper one is the melody and the bottom one is how you mapped it. The ones you made clickable/sliderend looks just random and doesn't emphasize things in a correct way. At least if you prioritized white ticks over red ticks (because that's how the song is basically structured) that would be a bit more understandable. But uhh, this is the hardest diff so there's no reason to make some strong sounds different than other strong sounds.
I also don't really get, why 00:08:899 - this no-sound is mapped as a sliderend while you ignored a lot of real 1/4s.
I don't actually mainstream a lot of white ticks, exception of the downbeats and dominant 1/4s, just as you said "song structured that way" or something else. In every hard difficulties, shouldn't there always be anything more interesting in variations between the rhythm on the song track and here, no? The point why I'd like to keep this kind of rhythm composition, is because those "strong" sounds really deserves a click considering your opinion is probably like hearing almost every single instrument including the background guitar strings which makes you call it "other strong sounds", if that's what you've told here. But most of all, I'm actually following the drumline over anything since it's pretty audible at utmost capacity in the song track along with this "melody".
Lastly, I don't even hear this "real" 1/4s you were saying at the end. The sliderends are supposed to be in distress of the upbeats including 00:08:899 - over to the next red tick, nearly similar reason to what I said before. As in, saying "maybe not" for making a change here if you don't mind me complaining.
By real 1/4s I meant the ones I pointed above 00:09:457 - 00:09:697 - 00:09:856 - . I get what you mean by distress of the upbeats, but there is a thing called "differentiation". By doing 00:08:500 (4,5,1,2) - this you provide 4 same 1/4 sliders and this makes players to expect 4 similar, if not same, sounds. But instead only 00:08:819 (1) - is representing something different. If a same pattern represents different things in the music, it cannot be following the changes of the music appropriately.
I'm mostly concerned about 00:09:138 (3,4,5) - this. I'm not against providing variations of rhythms, but you're like, switching between drums and melodies very randomly. Here's a quote from https://osu.ppy.sh/wiki/SRC
"Avoid following multiple layers of the song if it is unclear what rhythm is prioritizing. Players should be able to discern what part of the song is being followed."
So by using a triplet 00:09:138 (3,4,5) - you're providing a drum-following notes. But 00:09:298 (5) - this note passes through a very important drum sound of 00:09:457 - and focuses only on the melodies. So this makes it vague what you're actually try to follow, instead of providing rhythm variations while it is still well-stuck to the music.
* 00:23:819 (4,5) - Why a jump? It's even bigger than 00:24:457 (2,3) - very clear distinct vocals?
Yes, because it has this "very clear distinct" vocals and a good downbeat that's highly worth a jump to follow. You've already explained it for yourself lol
00:23:979 - is not a downbeat lol. If you meant the jump from 5 to 1 that's not what I'm talking about. Also it's just a long vowel which is not clearly distinct from 00:23:819 - . But 00:24:617 - has a clear sound 'ki'. So, mind explaining again, why 00:23:819 (4,5) - is bigger than 00:24:457 (2,3) - ?
* 00:33:713 (4,5) - I'm very sad that these two different sounds are mapped with same 1/2 sliders. Both 00:34:032 - and 00:34:191 - are quite strong but the latter is represented much weaker as a sliderend.
But in gameplay these actually do play quite suitable at least. One's the original and the other is mirrored-in-rotation so yeah, you know what's the difference other than it's design of patterning and aesthetics here? It's the note density. The vocals over this track is pretty good, yes. By the sound of it being similar to 00:34:989 (4) - so that the emphasis in-between would be evaluated and balanced. Well... since I disagreed to change this issue, feel free to be depressed for now~
So assuming you want to make me replacing them to circles would just leave the rhythm compositions overdone and would seriously lack potential notes for sliders to input. The sliderends on the sliders here suffices at least rather than clicking in everything or basically minor beats. Not to mention the downbeats as well as the snares too.
The difference between 00:34:032 (5) - and 00:34:989 (4) - is that the former one has shouting vocals on both the head and the tail, while the latter one has it only on the head. So saying they're similar is not really correct. It's closer to 00:34:670 (2,3) - rather than 4.
About the note density, it can always be changed when there are song elements that actually calls for it. In this case, shouting 1/2 vocals. I won't ask you to must-change it, but there's another reason why this is not working really well.
If you read my summary of the issues, I mentioned that the sv is way to low compared to the spacing. With current sv and ds, by using a slider there, 00:35:149 - became almost nothing compared to 00:34:032 - , while both 00:34:032 - 00:34:191 - are similarly important shouting vocals. So in this case you need more strict differentiation between clickable/non-clickable notes to emphasize what's more important. "This part lacks sliders" is not enough to weaken strong sounds.
* 00:35:628 (1,2) - Similar issue as above. To add something, 00:35:787 - is a sound more relevant to 00:35:947 - and 00:36:106 - so instead of repeating two 1/2 sliders, you should divide them into { 00:35:628 - } and { 00:35:787 - 00:35:947 - 00:36:106 - }
Nearly the same dispute as on 00:33:713 (4,5) -. There's no point in having these two slider look too different in making a variation or something that would fit best for this part, if they barely relate to the song track and rhythm. As told before.
I mean not making these two look differently. I mean having both 00:35:628 - and 00:35:787 - in a same slider lacks sound division. You can hear that a new layer of vocal starts at 00:35:787 - and continues on to 00:35:947 (2) - , which makes them have relevance instead of 00:35:628 - .
So I'm basically asking to divide 00:35:628 (1) - into two circles, and make 00:35:787 - 00:35:947 - 00:36:106 - work together while making 00:35:628 - irrelevant to them.
* 00:50:947 (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8) - The spacing gets wider until 5, then it suddenly gets reduced? If this is a build up, the scale should constantly go larger, if not the same. These spacing changes just look like random.
If I were to know the distance spacing between them going constantly larger, haven't you even thought of difficulty spiking? I mean, increased spacing can affect the star rating and would also increase the gap between this difficulty and Voli's. Since you don't know yet, I'm actually NOT ranking this map for difficulty and creating some gigantic screen jumps all over the build-up. And THAT is the thing what's called "random". Even this "not the same thing" is not random as well, if you haven't seen the yellow text on the top right. This should be the least reason why I've reduced the spacing.
But commonly as in my personal perspective; The circle size of this difficulty's setting is 5.5 and is already small. With bigger jumps, it is hardly passable with the cursor aiming and flowing for an Extra difficulty. So that's clearly a no-no.
So this is why you have to refrain yourself from using high spacing for less important sounds. I know it will become ridiculously hard if you keep increasing the spacing to the end. However there is a way that using smaller spacing for 00:50:947 (1,2,3,4) - too. Actually listening to it again, you don't really need to increase the spacing, but rather just keep the same intensity for 00:50:947 (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8) - all these drums.
So how you used the spacing is like this:
2.4 - 2.7 - 2.9 - 3.1 - 1.4 - 2.6 - 1.4
If you can't use high spacing for the latter ones because of the difficulty spike, then why don't use something like
2.4 - 2.6 - 2.4 - 2.2 - 2.4 - 2.5 - 2.3(example)
when the intensity is basically all the same.
* 01:14:404 (2,3,4) - Again same issue. 01:14:723 - is much stronger than 01:14:564 - , and 01:14:723 - is more related to 01:14:883 - 01:15:042 - so using two same kind of 1/2 sliders 01:14:564 (3,4) - doesn't really make sense. 01:14:404 (2,3) - should be slider + circle.
Also the same thing here told above. Just don't wanna repeat the same thing again and again. So there's that.
Same from me, not gonna repeat.
At least I've reconsidered the slider + circle issue.
Yeah that's cool.
* 01:16:957 (2,3) - same -
If you're following the vocal, you can use a slider + circle here too, no?
* 01:24:138 (1,2,3,4,5,6,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,1,2,3,4,5) - Pretty much same as 00:08:819 (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9) - . You're putting just 'some' drums here and there without any strict reason behind it. You should try to stick to a layer of sound you want to prioritize, and focus on those to show players what you're trying to follow. The current rhythm just looks like a mess.
Seeing your intolerant side, and looking for this "strict" reason why I've differed much compared to the intro of the track, then I will tell this. I've made many considerations a lot more of trying to make elements and notes of the song stand out better with improvements while looking over each and every mod here, rather than focusing only the playability and giving little-to-almost no care of other objectives. Speaking about the rhythm here specifically, I reduced the harshness of the density by not adding too many circles and other notes in order to make a complete finish for the outro without being done swiftly.
Just because I did not emphasize them together, or copy the rhythm from there to here, or something that makes a good transition of the rhythm... does not mean it shouldn't provide results being said. To be honest, like... In what way does those rhythm compositions mentioned convey what the song is actually doing? My answer is that the intro follows many sections of the songs like most drums and a few snares, and the outro is following the primary track as finalized to be followed rather than increasing note density overtime and leave players fail at the very last part to succeed pass.
So I've told this "strict" reason and explained it there, as I suggest for you to be careful with your tone next time. Calling something a "mess" negatively won't get you anywhere or give any beneficent even when it comes to improving a mapset. So please take your words more seriously, I'm not doing this for free without an effort.
I may have used a bad wording, sorry about that. What I meant about 'messy' is that they don't seem to follow a clear layer of the music and switched between drums/melodies in quite not understandable way.
As I said above, notes are expected to follow a kind of sound layer. So if you combine multiple layers into a section and switch between them in unexpected way, it only makes it vague of what these notes are supposed to follow, especially when you just pass through very large and clear sounds like 01:25:415 - 01:24:378 - 01:24:537 - this already shows that the notes have no interest in the drums; However you still used streams for some less important drums like 01:26:053 (4,5,6,7,8) - .
I get your purpose of not making the end too harsh. But is this the only way to avoid that? There are other options such as using 1/4 repeat sliders or kick sliders and you can even ignore some drums if they're not important. But in your current map it only causes random switches between drums and melodies instead of providing rhythm variety while still following a specific layer of the music.
What you explained in your reply is all about keeping the density to not make the part harsh, and not about each patterns make sense with the music. Obviously you can consider both. This is not the only way to achieve what you wanted by reducing the density.
So let me summarize the main issues:
1. Sliderends cannot emphasize as much as clickable objects. But there are so many spots where weaker sounds are emphasized more than strong sounds. Not only a matter of clickable/non-clickable issues, but it also occurs through the wrong spacing emphasis.
2. One of the things that make sliderends even weaker than others is that the general spacing is way too large compared to the slider velocity. You can never provide enough emphasis through a sliderend with such a low sv. Just think of this: Would you feel strong enough when what you need to do is to just move slowly until the beat?
3. Those two drum sections. Using only some of them even without following the basic music structure is just random and doesn't make the map to follow the music correctly.
You may see yourself reading out all this, as I assume that I may have answered those three general issues.
I would also add that the general spacing concept is lacking and most of the map just seems 'flowing' only. It sometimes has good patterns from part to part, but they mostly don't work nicely as part of the whole map's structure.
So I hope you would read through my mod and consider what you can try to improve in general.
I'll be waiting your turn, and I'm always ready to discuss more for anything as you like.